Frogs 100, Princes 1
Before stepping into the shower stall this morning, you glanced in the mirror. No change since you glanced in the mirror on your way to bed last night. A curious thought — no change — given that observable changes in face and body don’t happen overnight. But at the age fifty-plus, sudden changes have a way of sneaking up on you.
You scrub, shampoo, step out of the shower, towel off, blow dry and fluff your hair, apply some base, cinch the belt on your robe, wander out to the kitchen, pour water in the Keurig, drop the packet, snap the lid, listen for the gurgle.
This afternoon it’s Kevin. When you were on Match and OK Cupid, there were so many Kevins, with various names, that you left off sending good-luck-in-your-search replies and simply quit responding. You didn’t mean to ghost, but who’s got time to send all those thanks-but-no-thanks notes.
Traffic settled down when you switched to eHarmony; and now, with the recent switch to It’s Just Lunch, better quality pitches come with fewer but more select profiles.
This Kevin is — was — in IT. He’s a solopreneur now, doing apps for an online start up. “SEO is dead,” he held forth on your brief phone chat when you set up today’s meet. “Nobody cares about your brand or reads your guest blog posts. It’s all about affiliate marketing and growing your list.”
Seems we’ve become lead magnets at the top of our sales funnels.
His pic was okay. You’re not as fussy about pix as you used to be, your own pic no longer the cute Michelle Williams lookalike it once was. You checked Kevin out on Linked In and Instagram and didn’t find anything that jumped out at you.
Turns out you have a couple, three things in common: divorce, grown kids, masters degrees you never got around to finishing, Bonnie Raitt’s “Something To Talk About,” John Mayer’s “Slow Dancin’ In A Burnin’ Room.” You’ve each had a Prius you found to be a disappointment. You both drive Subarus now.
You learned, during your pre-date intro, that he likes to sail. That could be a good ice breaker. What’s the difference between a jib and a genoa? Other than that they both fly in the front of the boat, that’s all you know about sailing.
He says he makes a mean guacamole and since you hate avocadoes, there’s an item for some humor-laced table banter. He’s a dog person. You’re a cat person. The first red flag. He works out at Planet Fitness when not biking or cross-country skiing but not at the same Planet Fitness you work out at when you’re not biking or cross-country skiing.
“The usual, Meg?”
“Kaleigh, I wish you wouldn’t say that.”
It’s cool that your barista knows what you’re into, but if you’d been waiting on line with Brian… with Kevin, it could’ve been awkward. “So this is the lair you bring your victims to before devouring them.” Not an image you want to project. Fortunately, he’s several minutes late. Would’ve been here on the button, he starts off, except you gotta walk over to the box, stick the coins in, get the slip, walk back to the car and stick the slip on the dash.
The three second rule lands him in the friend zone. He treats the date as you do, not looking for a potential partner, just the chance to meet someone interesting. When you get up to go, he says he’d pick up the tab if you hadn’t already paid separately. Nice of him to offer but you haven’t battled your oppressors lo these many centuries only to have them spring for your lattés.
When you get home from Bikram — you needed the heat today, those pecs and lats have been so crimped in your cubbie — there’s something leftover in the fridge from last night’s Olive Garden. You’d joked about how, of the two of you, he’s the cook while you survive on take out, a frequent gender role reversal these days.
Among the messages in the queue, there’s a nice-to-have-met-you follow up with a mention of the African drumming troupe on tour from Senegal that’s going to be in the area in a few weeks. (You’d said that seeing them live was a bullet on this year’s bucket list.) He’d make a mental note and passed the info along.
A Tyler and a Ryan show up on your feed along with a link you absently click that tells you Kevin was #37, the thirty-seventh “interesting someone,” i.e. loser whom you’ve met since you signed up for the service.
Life coaches, Mind Valley hubs, Shift Network webinars, online Love Summits where you get the benefit of a dozen dating gurus and their bonuses, motivational celebs like John Gray, Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Marie Forleo, not to mention fellow travelerettes on the Law of Attraction runway all say the same thing. You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. Thirty-seven isn’t bad when you’re looking at a likely fifty and possibly a hundred.
You skip Tyler and Ryan. Black Mirror is coming on in a few and that’s where your mind’s at. That and the prick who jilted that sweet what’s-her-name on the previous Bacherlorette.
Later in the evening you get back to Justin. Justin does a man’s work. He spends the day on the roof installing solar panels. And he hates Donald Trump. You wish he hadn’t included that factoid in his bio. Saying you hate Donald Trump is like saying, “Hi, I saw your profile and thought we might have some things in com…” Dude, it’s 2018, are you like still on the planet?
Sadly, guys don’t go out on a limb anymore. #metoo drove the nail in that coffin. Stick a shotgun in a lady’s hand and give her permission to squeeze the trigger, and it’s not a hassle if it’s Annie Oakley but you’d best grab your beer and duck behind the piano if it’s Calamity Jane.
As for Justin, the manly #38 who hates Donald Trump, nothing says a girl, while waiting for Mr. Right to come along, can’t have her ribs sweetly cracked when the sun goes down on those newly hooked up solar panels.
Your list of Must Have’s and Deal Breakers are pretty much the same as everyone else’s. You’re into Salsa. He’s into Zydeco. It seems kind of petty to base the future of a relationship on something as trivial as a push break, yet that was #39. Kyle he said his name was. The girl owns the slot. They guy goes in and out. You got a problem with that?
With the next Kevin we reach forty just as we’re reaching sixty.
If it’s any consolation, some things are said to get better as you get older. Didn’t the songwriter who, at the age of sixty-plus, felt, at last, like a natural woman begin her career, as a twentysomething, wondering if we’d still love her tomorrow?
Maybe it’s the CAT scan your P.C.P. recommended based on something she spotted on the mammogram or the recent incident of road rage that spooked you or the dangly oxygen mask that — false alarm — tumbled from the overhead suitcase rack, the one where you’re supposed to slip yours on first and then stick the other one on the kid who’s sitting beside you, or maybe it was just getting up this morning, heading for the shower, glancing in the mirror and noticing, curiously, that there’d been no change since the night before…
The thing is you thought you had all the time in the world and realize that it’s the world that has all the time in the world and that a string of Kevins you find for free at the meet mart is worth precisely what you pay for them: a realization — the cerise gloss being the better bet than the magenta today, lips tamped and pursed — that comes alarmingly clear to you, clearer than the difference between a jib and a genoa.
Like they say about a nuclear blast sufficient to wipe out life on earth, it only takes a nanosecond, once you’ve made up your mind, to pick through the racks at Target, TJ Maxx, Beneton or the shishi bod shop in town and, as one squeaky hanger slams into the one beside it, to pick out the rishi skirt or knock off of the Versace, Armani or Bill Blass you’d look good in when you meet and kiss frog #41.
Call me after you’ve kissed your hundredth frog. I have goo goo eyes, scaly green skin, squinched up legs and a voice that goes “ribbit,” but you’ll think I’m a prince.
photo credit: Oleg Sergeichik on Unsplash
caption credit: Carole King, “Natural Woman”
